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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFIRST LOOK: The White House Has Been Covering Up the Presidency’s Role in Torture for Years
Absolutely brilliant and extraordinarily authoritative! I'm talking about Marcy Wheeler's debut article over at The / / Intercept, published just over an hour ago. Once again, if you have any questions as to why Newsweek refers to Ms. Wheeler as, "The Woman Who Knows The N.S.A.'s Secrets" (and the secrets of our entire security state, including the Central Intelligence Agency), they'll be answered in your first read of this exceptionally powerful, fact-filled, incredibly well-researched article..By Marcy Wheeler
The / / Intercept
Mar 13, 2014, 4:18 PM EDT
The fight between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee over the Committees Torture Report which Dan Froomkin covered here has now zeroed in on the White House.
Did the White House order the CIA to withdraw 920 documents from a server made available to Committee staffers, as Senator Dianne Feinstein says the agency claimed in 2010? Were those documents perhaps thousands of them pulled in deference to a White House claim of executive privilege, as Senator Mark Udall and then CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston suggested last fall? And is the White House continuing to withhold 9,000 pages of documents without invoking privilege, as McClatchy reported yesterday?
We can be sure about one thing: The Obama White House has covered up the Bush presidencys role in the torture program for years. Specifically, from 2009 to 2012, the administration went to extraordinary lengths to keep a single short phrase, describing President Bushs authorization of the torture program, secret.
......................
Some time before October 29, 2009, then National Security Advisor Jim Jones filed an ex parte classified declaration with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in response to a FOIA request by the ACLU seeking documents related to the torture program. In it, Jones argued that the CIA should not be forced to disclose the source of the CIAs authority, as referenced in the title of a document providing Guidelines for Interrogations and signed by then CIA Director George Tenet. That document was cited in two Justice Department memos at issue in the FOIA. Jones claimed that source of authority constituted an intelligence method that needed to be protected
The Obama Administration successfully appealed a judges ruling to release the redacted part of this title describing under what authorities torture was conducted. Document obtained by ACLU under FOIA
..........
MORE:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/03/13/president-obama-covering-presidencys-role-torture-4-years/http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/13/1284526/-Wheeler-s-Debut-The-White-House-Has-Been-Covering-Up-the-Presidency-s-Role-in-Torture-for-Yearshttps://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/03/13/president-obama-covering-presidencys-role-torture-4-years/
tridim
(45,358 posts)I'm a Democrat on a Democratic Forum.
kpete
(71,986 posts)RW Libertarian?
hmmmmmmmm
don't think so....
peace, kp
tridim
(45,358 posts)Peace and truth.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)The one of its founders might or might not be libertarian has nothing to do with gathering factual information.
reddread
(6,896 posts)oh, you got me. I wasted time on you.
Cha
(297,180 posts)Wheeler is partly correct. Pando has confirmed that the American government - in the form of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) - played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the revolution. Moreover, a large percentage of the rest of the funding to those same groups came from a US billionaire who has previously worked closely with US government agencies to further his own business interests. This was by no means a US-backed coup, but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych.
But thats not the shocking part.
Whats shocking is the name of the billionaire who co-invested with the US government (or as Wheeler put it: the dark force acting on behalf of Pax Americana).
Step out of the shadows . Wheelers boss, Pierre Omidyar.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/43123_The_Mysterious_Deep_Force_Behind_the_Coup_in_Ukraine_First_Look_Money_Guy_Pierre_Omidyar
AAO
(3,300 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)read an OP that reveals an agenda by the Republican party...said Republican will check it
out and can see for themselves their being duped.
That's how an Independent is born, imo.
As a Democrat, I want to learn when I have been misled too by my own party.
mazzarro
(3,450 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)As more and more inconvenient facts emerge, more and more sources are attacked. Leaving me to ask, now several times, 'what sources ARE credible'?? So far I have not received an answer to that question.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)RWers blame the "liberal" media.
The President's most ardent fans blame the "liberal" "libertarian" media.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)though, every time I see the now familiar tactic. I do understand though WHY I have yet to receive an answer. Thanks
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)tridim
(45,358 posts)Same reason I don't watch Faux Newz.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)A dull, dim-witted child.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)as good a defense strategy as any I guess.
tridim
(45,358 posts)Get used to it.
Pointing out the Libertarian-ness of Greenwalds's little blog is not name-calling, it's the truth.
bobduca
(1,763 posts)SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)With a link to a liberal site?
"pointing out the Libertarian-ness of Greenwalds little blog" means nothing to me. I happen to agree with libertarians on a couple of issues. Legalization and keeping the government out of the bedroom are two right off the top of my head.
I also disagree with them on many things as well.
However I do not dismiss what they say because it was them who said it. I believe that's called throwing the baby out with the bath water.
truth2power
(8,219 posts)I thought Democrats were supposed to be the smarter ones.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)that loyalists on either side of the aisle are the same. All they want is for those they revere to be seen as being right all the time.
pocoloco
(3,180 posts)Not so much??
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)the exception rather than the rule around these here parts.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)President Obama is wonderful...
Democrats are good, and kind, thoughtful, and patient...
We are the world... we are the children...
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)cui bono
(19,926 posts)fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)grow up!
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Kind of silly given Bush admits he authorized the "enhanced interrogation techniques".
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Anything to make it appear Obama actually authorized the torture."
They'll soon be calling for Obama's impeachment because his support for an ongoing Senate investigation of Bush's torture program is "too little, too late."
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)... because then they'd have to attack Biden.
And they can't blame Biden for anything Bush did, or for anything Obama did or didn't do.
Totally ruins the outrage landscape.
underpants
(182,788 posts)jsr
(7,712 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
TheKentuckian
(25,023 posts)If you aren't outraged you are either an idiot or getting a piece of the action.
Or sitting pretty, not having to deal with the downside. Some folks aren't worried about shit because whatever happens it is no skin off their nose, it is all just amusement.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)But on e-bay everything old is new again.
reddread
(6,896 posts)but the clock can be run out on the statute of limitations I guess.
http://www.thenation.com/article/173435/statutes-limitations-are-expiring-some-bush-crimes
who cares what peace and justice minded people think?
questionseverything
(9,653 posts)some detainees were tortured to death
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)is credible and anyone with who has followed what was done to America in using the fear of terrorism knows GWB should be in jail.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)Why are you bringing up Libertarianism?
sibelian
(7,804 posts)It bears no relation to the OP at all. It's a billboard post.
xiamiam
(4,906 posts)he chose the wrong side while the majority on the entire planet saw this for the stench that it is.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Stopping the 2nd great depression and endling the Iraq war would be enough to put him in the top teir on their own.
Saving the US auto industry, getting the ACA passed, ending DADT, and soon DOMA, and ending Afghanistan.
History will be kind to Obama because he's earned it.
The disgruntled left will remain angry, but that's a given.
tridim
(45,358 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)"FIRST LOOK: The White House Has Been Covering Up the Presidencys Role in Torture for Years"
The CIA and Senate are in a battle over documents related to an ongoing torture investigation, and people want the most important issue to be Obama, not the investigation.
Like I said before, consider the timeline and the facts.
The removals happened in 2010. It's not hard to believe that there are people at the CIA who don't want this information to come out.
Reading into Senator Feinstein's statement and the timeline: Brennan wasn't head of the CIA when the documents were removed, but interestingly he lost out on the position in Obama's first term because of his support for torture.
Feinstein:
To say the least, this is puzzling. How can the CIAs official response to our study stand factually in conflict with its own Internal Review?
Heads will likely roll at the CIA at the conclusion of an investigation into the removal of the documents. It's likely there could be criminal charges. Still, the main purpose of this trampling on the separation of powers is an attempt to hide Bush's torture program.
The report, if as damaging as Feinstein states, should result in war crime prosecutions.
Now here is a key point: The most sought-after documents on torture, ones the CIA is desperate to keep from the public, were created/turned over by Leon Panetta.
Feinstein:
On March 5, 2009, the committee voted 14-1 to initiate a comprehensive review of the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program. Immediately, we sent a request for documents to all relevant executive branch agencies, chiefly among them the CIA.
The committees preference was for the CIA to turn over all responsive documents to the committees office, as had been done in previous committee investigations.
Director Panetta proposed an alternative arrangement: to provide literally millions of pages of operational cables, internal emails, memos, and other documents pursuant to the committees document requests at a secure location in Northern Virginia. We agreed, but insisted on several conditions and protections to ensure the integrity of this congressional investigation.
Per an exchange of letters in 2009, then-Vice Chairman Bond, then-Director Panetta, and I agreed in an exchange of letters that the CIA was to provide a stand-alone computer system with a network drive segregated from CIA networks for the committee that would only be accessed by information technology personnel at the CIAwho would not be permitted to share information from the system with other (CIA) personnel, except as otherwise authorized by the committee.
It was this computer network that, notwithstanding our agreement with Director Panetta, was searched by the CIA this past January, and once before which I will later describe.
<...>
There are several reasons why the draft summary of the Panetta Review was brought to our secure spaces at the Hart Building.
Let me list them:
The significance of the Internal Review given disparities between it and the June 2013 CIA response to the committee study. The Internal Panetta Review summary now at the secure committee office in the Hart Building is an especially significant document as it corroborates critical information in the committees 6,300-page Study that the CIAs official response either objects to, denies, minimizes, or ignores.
Unlike the official response, these Panetta Review documents were in agreement with the committees findings. Thats what makes them so significant and important to protect.
When the Internal Panetta Review documents disappeared from the committees computer system, this suggested once again that the CIA had removed documents already provided to the committee, in violation of CIA agreements and White House assurances that the CIA would cease such activities.
As I have detailed, the CIA has previously withheld and destroyed information about its Detention and Interrogation Program, including its decision in 2005 to destroy interrogation videotapes over the objections of the Bush White House and the Director of National Intelligence. Based on the information described above, there was a need to preserve and protect the Internal Panetta Review in the committees own secure spaces.
Now, the Relocation of the Internal Panetta Review was lawful and handled in a manner consistent with its classification. No law prevents the relocation of a document in the committees possession from a CIA facility to secure committee offices on Capitol Hill. As I mentioned before, the document was handled and transported in a manner consistent with its classification, redacted appropriately, and it remains securedwith restricted accessin committee spaces.
<...>
I also want to reiterate to my colleagues my desire to have all updates to the committee report completed this month and approved for declassification. Were not going to stop. I intend to move to have the findings, conclusions and the executive summary of the report sent to the president for declassification and release to the American people. The White House has indicated publicly and to me personally that it supports declassification and release.
- more -
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=db84e844-01bb-4eb6-b318-31486374a895
If people are going to claim that Obama is responsible for the CIA removing documents, then why isn't Obama responsible for Panetta providing them in the first place?
What's the theory: Obama gave the Senate the documents so they could confirm torture, and then took them back?
If the President wanted to cover up the issue, there would be no investigation, and no Internal Panetta Review. Anything from the CIA would be cleansed of any damaging evidence. That is clearly not the case.
The issue is who at the CIA engaged in this behavior. People are throwing around Feinstein's and Udall's names to make this about the President when both have reiterated that he fully supports declassifying the report.
By Greg Miller
The Senate on Thursday voted to confirm Caroline Krass as CIA general counsel...Her confirmation had been held up in part by lawmakers angered by the ongoing dispute between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee over committees investigation of the agencys use of harsh interrogation techniques after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
During her confirmation hearing in December, Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) voted against Krasss nomination and accused the CIA of refusing to turn over an internal review of the interrogation program ordered by former agency Director Leon E. Panetta. He also pushed for a statement from President Obama indicating support for declassifying the committees 6,200-page interrogation report. Obama did so Wednesday, apparently clearing the way for Thursdays vote to confirm Krass.
Udall let Krass's confirmation move forward Thursday, but he called for new leadership in the CIA's general counsel's office.
"We need to correct the record on the CIA's coercive detention and interrogation program and declassify the Senate Intelligence Committee's exhaustive study of it, Udall said in a statement. "I released my hold on Caroline Krass's nomination today and voted for her to help change the direction of the agency....The president has stated an unequivocal commitment to supporting the declassification of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report. Coloradans expect me to hold him to his word."
- more -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/13/senate-confirms-caroline-krass-as-cia-general-counsel/
Roll call: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=2&vote=00076
Enrique
(27,461 posts)thinking which ALWAYS leads to the conclusion that Obama is right.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)As opposed to the idiotic thinking that Obama is always wrong, facts be damned?
Enrique
(27,461 posts)obviously.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)point across...
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Obama called on the former general chairman of the RNC to stop Spain's investigation of US torture crimes.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/25/105786/wikileaks-how-us-tried-to-stop.html
MIAMI It was three months into Barack Obama's presidency, and the administration -- under pressure to do something about alleged abuses in Bush-era interrogation policies -- turned to a Florida senator to deliver a sensitive message to Spain:
Don't indict former President George W. Bush's legal brain trust for alleged torture in the treatment of war on terror detainees, warned Mel Martinez on one of his frequent trips to Madrid. Doing so would chill U.S.-Spanish relations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/202776?INTCMP=SRCH
6. (C) As reported in SEPTEL, Senator Mel Martinez, accompanied by the Charge d'Affaires, met Acting FM Angel Lossada during a visit to the Spanish MFA on April 15. Martinez and the Charge underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship. The Senator also asked if the GOS had thoroughly considered the source of the material on which the allegations were based to ensure the charges were not based on misinformation or factually wrong statements. Lossada responded that the GOS recognized all of the complications presented by universal jurisdiction, but that the independence of the judiciary and the process must be respected. The GOS would use all appropriate legal tools in the matter. While it did not have much margin to operate, the GOS would advise Conde Pumpido that the official administration position was that the GOS was "not in accord with the National Court." Lossada reiterated to Martinez that the executive branch of government could not close any judicial investigation and urged that this case not affect the overall relationship, adding that our interests were much broader, and that the universal jurisdiction case should not be viewed as a reflection of the GOS position.
Judd Gregg, Obama's Republican nominee for Commerce secretary, didn't like the investigations either.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/202776?INTCMP=SRCH
4. (C) As reported in REF A, Senator Judd Gregg, accompanied by the Charge d'Affaires, raised the issue with Luis Felipe Fernandez de la Pena, Director General Policy Director for North America and Europe during a visit to the Spanish MFA on April 13. Senator Gregg expressed his concern about the case. Fernandez de la Pena lamented this development, adding that judicial independence notwithstanding, the MFA disagreed with efforts to apply universal jurisdiction in such cases.
Why the aversion? To protect Bushco, of course!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/200177
The fact that this complaint targets former Administration legal officials may reflect a "stepping-stone" strategy designed to pave the way for complaints against even more senior officials.
Eric Holder got the message.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7410267&page=1
As lawmakers call for hearings and debate brews over forming commissions to examine the Bush administration's policies on harsh interrogation techniques, Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed to a House panel that intelligence officials who relied on legal advice from the Bush-era Justice Department would not be prosecuted.
"Those intelligence community officials who acted reasonably and in good faith and in reliance on Department of Justice opinions are not going to be prosecuted," he told members of a House Appropriations Subcommittee, reaffirming the White House sentiment. "It would not be fair, in my view, to bring such prosecutions."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8470942
Associated Press Writer= WASHINGTON (AP) â Attorney General Eric Holder left open the possibility Thursday to prosecuting former Bush administration officials but ruled out filing charges merely over disagreements about policy.
"I will not permit the criminalization of policy differences," Holder testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee.
"However, it is my responsibility as attorney general to enforce the law. It is my duty to enforce the law. If I see evidence of wrongdoing I will pursue it to the full extent of the law," he said.
~snip~
"It is certainly the intention of this administration not to play hide and seek, or not to release certain things," said Holder. "It is not our intention to try to advance a political agenda or to try to hide things from the American people."
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/cia-exhales-99-out-of-101-torture-cases-dropped/
This is how one of the darkest chapters in U.S. counterterrorism ends: with practically every instance of suspected CIA torture dodging criminal scrutiny. Its one of the greatest gifts the Justice Department could have given the CIA as David Petraeus takes over the agency.
Over two years after Attorney General Eric Holder instructed a special prosecutor, John Durham, to preliminar(ily) review whether CIA interrogators unlawfully tortured detainees in their custody, Holder announced on Thursday afternoon that hell pursue criminal investigations in precisely two out of 101 cases of suspected detainee abuse. Some of them turned out not to have involved CIA officials after all. Both of the cases that move on to a criminal phase involved the death in custody of detainees, Holder said.
But just because theres a further criminal inquiry doesnt necessarily mean there will be any charges brought against CIA officials involved in those deaths. If Holders decision on Thursday doesnt actually end the Justice Departments review of torture in CIA facilities, it brings it awfully close, as outgoing CIA Director Leon Panetta noted.
On this, my last day as Director, I welcome the news that the broader inquiries are behind us, Panetta wrote to the CIA staff on Thursday. We are now finally about to close this chapter of our Agencys history.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1160238/How-MI5-colluded-torture-Binyam-Mohamed-claims-British-agents-fed-Moroccan-torturers-questions--WORLD-EXCLUSIVE.html#ixzz256BI1FmS
Documents obtained by this newspaper - which were disclosed to Mohamed through a court case he filed in America - show that months after he was taken to Morocco aboard an illegal 'extraordinary rendition' flight by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, MI5 twice gave the CIA details of questions they wanted his interrogators to put to him, together with dossiers of photographs.
At the time, in November 2002, Mohamed was being subject to intense, regular beatings and sessions in which his chief Moroccan torturer, a man he knew as Marwan, slashed his chest and genitals with a scalpel.
~snip~
The revelations will put Foreign Secretary David Miliband under even greater pressure to come clean about British involvement in the rendition and alleged torture of Muslim terror suspects.
Last month his lawyers persuaded the High Court not to allow parts of a judgement that summarised Mohamed's treatment to be published, on the grounds that to do so would jeopardise Britians intelligence-sharing relationship with America.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/05/11/libyaus-investigate-death-former-cia-prisoner
(New York) The Libyan authorities should carry out a full and transparent investigation of the reported suicide of the Libyan prisoner Ali Mohamed al-Fakheri, also known as Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, Human Rights Watch said today. Al-Libi, who was held in secret US and Egyptian detention from late 2001 to at least 2005, was found dead in his cell in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. Human Rights Watch spoke with him briefly in the Tripoli prison on April 27, though he refused to be interviewed.
After his arrest in Pakistan in late 2001, al-Libi was sent by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to Egypt in 2002, under the procedure known as rendition. According to a CIA declassified cable and a US Senate report, he was tortured in Egypt and gave false information about a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda that Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, used in his speech to the UN Security Council on the planned war with Iraq. Al-Libi was later held by the CIA in a series of secret prisons in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
~snip~
Al-Libi was returned from US custody to Libya in late 2005 or early 2006 and was detained at Abu Salim prison. The Abu Salim prison authorities told Human Rights Watch in April 2009 that he had been sentenced to life imprisonment by the State Security Court, a court whose trial proceedings fail to conform to international fair trial standards.
Human Rights Watch briefly met with al-Libi on April 27 during a research mission to Libya. He refused to be interviewed, and would say nothing more than: Where were you when I was being tortured in American jails. Human Rights Watch has strongly condemned the CIAs detention program and documented how detainees in CIA custody were abused, but, like other human rights groups, was never granted access to prisoners in CIA custody.
CIA Has Run a Secret Facility for Some Al Qaeda Detainees, Officials Say
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5918-2004Dec16.html
Within the heavily guarded perimeters of the Defense Department's much-discussed Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, the CIA has maintained a detention facility for valuable al Qaeda captives that has never been mentioned in public, according to military officials and several current and former intelligence officers.
~snip~
Most international terrorism suspects in U.S. custody are held not by the CIA but by the Defense Department at the Guantanamo Bay prison. They are guaranteed access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and, as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this year, have the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal courts.
CIA detainees, by contrast, are held under separate rules and far greater secrecy. Under a presidential directive and authorities approved by administration lawyers, the CIA is allowed to capture and hold certain classes of suspects without accounting for them in any public way and without revealing the rules for their treatment. The roster of CIA prisoners is not public, but current and former U.S. intelligence officials say the agency holds the most valuable al Qaeda leaders and many mid-level members with knowledge of the group's logistics, financing and regional operations.
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/cia_oig_report.pdf
[IMG][/IMG]
p. 15
http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/paper/index.php?article=4282
Nineteen-year-old Mohamed Jawad has set foot in Afghanistan after seven years in detention making him one of the youngest prisoners to be released from Guantánamo. He is set to sue the US Government in the next couple of months for inhumane treatment and torture in addition to being a minor in detention.
~snip~
Jawad claims his captors tortured him and other prisoners, deprived them of food and sleep. He has described having his hands tied behind his back and being forced to eat by bending over and putting his mouth into a plate of food. He received substantial abuse, including the frequent flier treatment which is a form of torture where the victim is shifted from cell to cell. Mohamed was shifted through 152 locations in a weeks time, staying a maximum of 2 hours and 55 seconds in each location.
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/government-seeks-continue-detaining-mohammed-jawad-guantanamo-despite-lack-evidenc
NEW YORK After admitting to a federal judge that Guantánamo detainee and American Civil Liberties Union client Mohammed Jawad had been tortured and illegally detained for nearly seven years, the Obama administration today asked the court for permission to continue to detain Jawad while it decides whether to bring a criminal case against him. The request, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, comes after U.S. District Court Judge Ellen S. Huvelle berated government lawyers last week for their inadequate case against Jawad.
Last fall, a military judge in Jawad's Guantánamo military commission proceeding threw out the bulk of the evidence against him finding that it was obtained through torture. Despite that ruling, the Obama administration continued to rely on those same statements in Jawad's habeas corpus challenge before Judge Huvelle until last week when it said it would no longer rely on that evidence. The Afghan Attorney General recently sent a letter to the U.S. government demanding Jawad's return and suggesting he was as young as 12 when he was captured in Afghanistan and illegally rendered from that country nearly seven years ago.
Following his 2002 arrest in Afghanistan for allegedly throwing a grenade at two U.S. soldiers and their interpreter, Jawad was subjected to repeated torture and other mistreatment and to a systematic program of harsh and highly coercive interrogations designed to break him physically and mentally. Jawad tried to commit suicide in his cell by slamming his head repeatedly against the wall.
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/cia_oig_report.pdf
[IMG][/IMG]
p. 42.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/8/he_was_the_agency_ex_cia#transcript
AMY GOODMAN: That was CIA Director-designate John Brennan being questioned yesterday during his Senate confirmation hearing by Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan.
For more, were joined by Melvin Goodman, former CIA and State Department analyst, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, director of the Centers National Security Project, his latest book, National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism.
Your response to that line of questioning, Mel Goodman?
MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, I think it was very disturbing on a lot of levels. Its a step backward, for one thing. Former Director Leon Panetta did define waterboarding as torture. The attorney general has defined waterboarding as torture. But John Brennan wont do so. And also, when John Brennan was a deputy executive assistant to Buzzy Krongard and to George Tenet, remember, he was the cheerleader for some of these onerous policies, particularly renditions and extraordinary renditions. So, for John Brennan today to say he read the Senate committee intelligence report on torture and he learned things he never knew before and that he was shocked with what he learned, this is a case of incredible willful ignorance. Hes been at the top of the CIA and now at the top in the White Housein fact, hes probably stepping down in becoming the director of the CIA. He has written the manual for targeted killings. Hes written the disposition matrix, which is something out of George Orwell, that allows the president of the United States to pick targets based on evidence that Brennan collects from the CIA, presumably the same kind of evidence that was taken to the country in 2002 and 2003 that allowed the United States to go to war. So, all of this is extremely disturbing about who Brennan is.
JOHN BRENNAN: I did not take steps to stop the CIAs use of those techniques. I was not in the chain of command of that program. I served as deputy executive director at the time. I had responsibility for overseeing the management of the agency in all of its various functions. And I was aware of the program. I was ccd on some of those documents. But I had no oversight of it. I wasnt involved in its creation. I had expressed my personal objections and views to mysome agency colleagues about certain of those EITs, such as waterboarding, nudity and others, where I professed my personal objections to it. But I did not try to stop it, because it was, you know, something that was being done in a different part of the agency under the authority of others, and it was something that was directed by the administration at the time.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Mel Goodman, your response to his answer?
MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, very disturbing for him to say he was in a different part of the agency. He was the agency. He was on the seventh floor of the agency. He was an executive assistant to the director and to the executive secretary of the CIA. He was the one they allowed to go on Sunday morning talk shows to defend renditions, and particularly extraordinary renditions, which involve not only kidnapping people off the streets of Europe and the Middle East and Africa, but sending them to countries where we knew these people would be tortured.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/7/globalizing_torture_ahead_of_brennan_hearing#transcript
MARGARET WARNER: So, was Secretary Rice correct today when she called it a vital tool in combating terrorism?
JOHN BRENNAN: I think its an absolutely vital tool. I have been intimately familiar now over the past decade with the cases of rendition that the U.S. government has been involved in, and I can say without a doubt that it has been very successful as far as producing intelligence that has saved lives.
MARGARET WARNER: So is itare you saying, bothin two ways, both in getting terrorists off the streets and also in the interrogation?
JOHN BRENNAN: Yes. The rendition is the practice or the process of rendering somebody from one place to another place. It is moving them. And U.S. government will frequently facilitate that movement from a country to another.
MARGARET WARNER: Why would you not, if thisif you have a suspect whos a danger to the United States, keep itkeep him in the United States custody? Is it because we want another country to do the dirty work?
JOHN BRENNAN: No, I dont think thats it at all. Also, I think its rather arrogant to think that were the only country that respects human rights. I think that we have a lot of assurances from these countries that we hand over terrorists to that they will in fact respect human rights. And there are different ways to gain those assurances. But also, lets say an individual goes to Egypt, because theyre an Egyptian citizen. And Egyptians then have a longer history in terms of dealing with them, and they have family members and others that they can bring in, in fact, to be part of the whole interrogation process.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was John Brennan speaking to PBSs Margaret Warner in 2005.
AMY GOODMAN: The report is called "Globalizing Torture." It also identifies 54 foreign governments that aided the United States in these operations. The countries include Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen and Zimbabwe.
One country thats not listed is India, but the report is making headlines there, too, because, for more, were joined now by the reports author, Amrit Singh. Shes senior legal officer at the National Security and Counterterrorism program at the Open Society Justice Initiative. The full name of her new report is "Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition." Shes co-author with Jameel Jaffer of the book Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond_. And interestingly, the new torture report has become news in India. The human-rights-secret-detention-amrit-singh">headline in The Times of India reads, quote: "Prime Ministers Daughter Blows Whistle on 54 Nations that Helped U.S. Detention Programme." Another website headline, their story: "PMs Daughter Takes on CIA over Torture." Thats right, our guest, Amrit Singh, is the daughter of Indias prime minister, Manmohan Singh.
Amrit Singh, welcome to Democracy Now!
AMRIT SINGH: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Lets talk about John Brennan first. He goes to Capitol Hill today for his confirmation hearing. You wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times. What do you think he should be asked? What do you think of the nomination of John Brennan to be head of the CIA?
AMRIT SINGH: Well, I think John Brennan should be asked what he meant when he said that he was intimately familiar with cases of rendition and that rendition is an absolutely vital tool in combating terrorism, because by the time Brennan made that statement in December of 2005, a number of people had been rendered to foreign governments where they were tortured. By December of 2005, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery had been rendered to Egypt and subjected to electric shock. By December of 2005, Maher Arar, a Canadian national, had been rendered to Syria and subjected to being locked up in a tiny grave-like cell and beaten with cables. By December 2005, a number of other individuals, including Khalid El-Masri, had been rendered. Khalid El-Masri was captured and kidnapped in Macedonia and transferred to Afghanistan and abused. A recent court decision by the European Court of Human Rights found that Khalid El-Masris treatment by the CIA amounted to torture. So I think that John Brennan has a lot of explaining to do as to what exactly he meant.
Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/globalizing-torture-cia-secret-detention-and-extraordinary-rendition
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)G_j
(40,367 posts)and no, it's not creative speculation..
ProSense
(116,464 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024662090
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Sounds like John McCain's medical history.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)And there are people here defending the defense of that...absolutly chilling to think we have those people among us.
Solly Mack
(90,763 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Superb post
JEB
(4,748 posts)OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)It was an OP (with more info.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022536791
JEB
(4,748 posts)Got it marked for reference. Thanks again.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)Re-OP it!!!
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)It's certainly relevant again.
Catherina
(35,568 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)and great rebuttal
Octafish
(55,745 posts)That's what Poppy and Ollie said during Iran-Contra.
Thank you for the important info. OnyxCollie. KBR.
questionseverything
(9,653 posts)The report, if as damaging as Feinstein states, should result in war crime prosecutions. /////////////////////////////////////
I just want you to know , that is all we have ever wanted....
albino65
(484 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)a new record of three in one swatting.
this OP looks one hell of a lot better without the noise and trash talk piling up as high as it was.
highly recommended.
they have nothing productive or informative to offer.
xiamiam
(4,906 posts)Divernan
(15,480 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)libertarian! and Obama haters (out to harm his 3rd term!)
bobduca
(1,763 posts)ignore list for the trolls.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
bobduca
(1,763 posts)Claque Squad Leader
Bobbie Jo
(14,341 posts)Your posts are cringeworthy, seriously.
bobduca
(1,763 posts)seriously, one of the worst.
I know what you are, but what am I?
Brilliant.
Seriously, you must add me to the list you keep harping about, at once.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
bemildred
(90,061 posts)stupidicus
(2,570 posts)as I've been pointing out to my rightwingnut enemies elsewhere since they started whining about his use of executive prerogative/discretion with the ACA, and will remind them again now that the house has passed a bill in an effort to cease and desist with such, this is an example of the same thing.
They should really be all over BHO about prosecuting Bush as domestic and international law would seek to require, no?
reddread
(6,896 posts)Stolen elections, sexual harassment, false claims about yellow cake, assassinations and extrajudicial killings,
I dont see what harm there is in a little torture.
Especially if it follows a costly renditioning.
This aint your daddy's habeas corpus ya know.
get a grip, America.
stupidicus
(2,570 posts)the examples are many for the selective outrage that has arisen since BHO starting exercising executive privilege
Berlum
(7,044 posts)quinnox
(20,600 posts)Follow this up.
90-percent
(6,829 posts)When he says; "Nothing could be further from the truth."
-90% Jimmy
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)JEB
(4,748 posts)well, responsible. Torture and international treaty breaking (law breaking) followed by zero accountability has damaged our nation beyond repair.
Looking forward to finding more authoritarian bots for my ignore list! Here trolly trolly trollies!
Catherina
(35,568 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)spying organizations. I think they are called intelligence organizations, though there's nothing intelligent about these organizations.
Heck, I am convinced the CIA killed President Kennedy. I think presidents end up under the thumb of spy organizations, and either work with them "or else."
grasswire
(50,130 posts)....the assassins worked for.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)Autumn
(45,064 posts)After the inauguration it was clear that Bush would be protected. Looking forward and all that shit.
northoftheborder
(7,572 posts)......read it? Most of your posts are concerned with arguments about the publishing source. Before I read this long article, I would like to see some honest critiques from some people who have read the whole thing. Help a fellow DUer....who has less time than some of you to spend on argument. Thank you.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)It's basically a rather pointless mishmash of old news and yesterday's blog headlines to produce something worthy of, well, e-bay.
northoftheborder
(7,572 posts)cui bono
(19,926 posts)Now how do you know anyone who responds to you has actually read it anyway?
Any one with the same attitude as those who didn't read it could give you that comment without having read it.
Why not go peruse it and see if you agree with it or not?
grasswire
(50,130 posts).....so don't take the naysayer's characterization (who replied to your request for a summary) with any confidence at all. Marcy Wheeler has a Ph.D. and is known to be precise and precisely truthful. Bookmark the article and read it later when you have some time, and read all the comments, too.
Autumn
(45,064 posts)Most people make up their own minds on stuff like that. Bookmark it and read it later if you find yourself short on time.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)but...you might be addressing people I can't see here on my ignore list who had a problem with the article and were doing "drive by's?"
Whatever, I read both at the Intercept Site. Good stuff over there.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)writing in his style that made him a must read for many of us. He makes sense out of complicated issues and supports with links to other sources and then pulls the info together for his readers. Not everyone has a talent like he has. Glad to see him freed from his Wilderness at Huff Post....
K&R.
....and his previous gig at WaPo.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)Many of them were obtained by FOIA requests from The Federation of American Scientists (I trust that site too)
http://www.torturingdemocracy.org/documents
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)tea and oranges
(396 posts)Look, I get a stomachache reading articles like the Wheeler piece the OP discusses. Sometimes I even have to quit reading a few times & do something else until I'm centered enough to continue.
That doesn't mean:
The writer of the OP is a libertarian (or some other mistrusted group).
The writer hates Obama.
That Obama's always wrong.
That my personal discomfort means article must be a lie.
That if I jump up & down & yell it'll all go away.
That if I attack enough Duers I can ignore the implications.
If you can't handle disappointment, ambiguity, nuance, or truth, stay away from politics.
I'm taking the advice of other posters & putting a few of you on ignore.
Buh Bye!
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)my ignore list.
The people who are left are able to disagree with others and engage in real discussion at the same time! Sometimes without derisive snark or even a single .
tea and oranges
(396 posts)The people who are now on ignore are like the opposite of cockroaches, who run away when the lights come on.
The Ignored rush in whenever a dark topic is explored, almost immediately, yet never shed light on it - they just want to mock, taunt, deny, & call names.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)libertad
pnwmom
(108,977 posts)even though Obama has been supporting declassification of the documents that would show what happened.
There are better sources on this topic than Marcy Wheeler:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024648419
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)nilesobek
(1,423 posts)than the typical 30 second attention span that some are only capable of.
One of the complications is that if and when there ever is prosecutions for torture there will be covert forces aligned with Democrats as well as Republicans who are guilty. "A house divided upon itself cannot stand?"
President Obama must be keenly aware that if there was an intense investigation with concrete consequences for the guilty that it just might rip this country apart.
Remember those heady days after 9/11? Bush had 93% approval ratings similar to Putin. People were calling for blood on the Islamic world in displays of the ugliest bigotry I've ever seen. The public was inviting this sanctioned torture program. They wanted blood and the intelligence services gave it to them.
This is such a well regulated site that I couldn't imagine ever using my alert or ignore feature for anything. That being said, there is persistent, repetitive posts arguing from certain points of view, which can be exasperating. But everyone's voice needs to be heard and criticism is good.